More and more this system looks incredibly unfair - we have a national election, with televised leaders' debates and campaigns focused on the leaders, but yet we hold on to a flawed local system that is not reflective of the national vote (although in some ways this is the most reflective for years, as there's no majority)

This may sound like a cry for the Lib Dems (and quite frankly, why shouldn't it be?) but look at this:

in 2005 Labour got 9.5 million votes (35.3%)

Tories got 8.7 million (32.3%)

a difference of less than 800,000 votes - it gave Labour 158 more seats and a majority of 22 - in this election, Gordon Brown has got fewer votes than Michael Howard had, despite a vastly higher turnout, Cameron has beaten him by nearly three times the amount that Blair beat Howard by, and yet Labour only go down to 258 - despite this being their worst poll since 1983, and second worst since the first world war, meanwhile the Tories get a higher share of the vote than the last Labour majority, and indeed all their own majorities after Thatcher's initial win, and yet are still short of the winning post.

Clearly something is not right, Labour have blatantly been gerrymandering the boundaries to suit themselves and effectively cannot get anywhere near Hagues tiddly 166 seats - and yes, you guessed it, even he got more votes than Brown

I say this not as a disgruntled Tory (and nor do I believe that 36% should give you carte blanche in Parliament), but out of horror that we have got a system that is so blatantly biased that a margin that gave Blair his whopping majority in 2001 cannot even give Cameron a simple majority - it's insane, and frankly the Tories are fools for supporting it, the country has clearly moved on from local constituency voting, the television debates only confirmed that, and more importantly for the Tories it is now in their best interests to support reform

And seriously, a million extra votes, a 1% gain...five seats lost and a reduced share of seats

People are going to start getting pissed at this - the young in particular are becoming less tribal and are seeing a national party who they gave nearly seven million votes to get dicked around because they could only finish a strong second in a hundred safe seats - why the bloody hell should it be right that the biggest minority in a seat get full control, where a difference of 1 vote (yes, several seats were under a margin of 100) can see over half the population's vote wasted simply because of where the arbitrary geographical line is drawn around them? In the east of England, where Labour don't exist (save for some now-defeated parts of Norfolk and Basildon) the Lib Dems are the second party - they got just over half the vote the Tories did, otherwise known as a ratio of 1:2 - the Tories got 52 seats...the Libs got 4

It's an old argument, but I feel now the case is stronger than ever - we have a record vote for the Lib Dems (and a record piss-take), and it's now seriously affecting the Tories, electoral reform is more important than ever

Me:

That's Proper Liberalism

About me

Tarquin is a lazy, good-for-nothing, would-be historian who gets easily distracted by idiocy, hypocrisy (particularly of politicians) and football.

The name Tarquin comes from a couple of late Roman kings, and also from a Monty Python sketch, and possibly from some hippies I annoyed several years ago. Peter Hitchens has a problem with my name for some reason, the only reasoning for this seems to be that he thinks it's not a real name...which I'm pretty sure it is, although I'm open to being proven wrong.

Favourite hobbies include: eating, reading, shouting at the TV, watching football and pontificating.